A crime of aggression, under which politicians and military leaders can be held individually responsible for invasions and other major attacks, comes into force at the international criminal court, reviving global legal powers last exercised at the Nuremburg and Tokyo war crimes trials of the 1940s.
Claims alleging that armed force has been used against the “sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence” of another state can, from Tuesday, be taken to the tribunal in The Hague.
The new offence cannot, however, be enforced retrospectively over conflicts such as the 2003 Iraq invasion.